Flaughtin

Hello, Flaughtin, and Welcome to Wikipedia!   

Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy the encyclopedia and want to stay. As a first step, you may wish to read the Introduction.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me at my talk page – I'm happy to help. Or, you can ask your question at the New contributors' help page.

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Flaughtin, good luck, and have fun. TheEditster (talk) 22:54, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Recent removal of sections from this talk page

Hello! I recently noticed that you decided to delete some sections from your talk page, instead of archiving them. Along with this, the content of these messages, specifically messages regarding editing warring, are used for administrative purposes. and while they are visible in the history of the page, it is better to archive them, so that they can be accessed easily by other members of the community.

Instead of sweeping it under the rug, it is better to apologize for your behavior, and to simply archive it.

Thanks, Upsidedown Keyboard (talk) 00:05, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@Upsidedown Keyboard: "Instead of sweeping it under the rug, it is better to apologize for your behavior, and to simply archive it." What are you talking about? I'm not sweeping anything under anywhere and I'm not going to apologize for something that I didn't do. I wasn't aware of the need to archive my previous messages and in any case I didn't even know that the function existed but i will take it into consideration going forward. I can't tell if you were trying to be helpful or condescending with your last sentence; for now I am going to assume good faith and say you were just trying to help, but please, to avoid anymore confusions like this in the future, don't make such comments (on at least my talk page) again. Flaughtin (talk) 00:29, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, and I would like to point out that the intended tone was helpful. Also, I'd like to point out that Archival is not required, but recommended as a courtesy, as sifting through a massive log of changes for past conversations is not easy. I also apologize for the idiom, it probably was not appropriate. Either way, I hope you see me as having not (oops) a threatening tone. :( Upsidedown Keyboard (talk) 00:34, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@Upsidedown Keyboard: [1] Yeah I was going to say: I think you meant to say hope you see me as NOT having a threatening tone. But at any rate, thanks for clarifying the whole thing.

As for the pspecific actions that I'll take: I am not going to archive what I have removed already, but, going forward, I will archive future messages I think deserve to be archived and will make it a point (esp. your part about this being a courtesy notice) of keeping your message here on the talk page. Flaughtin (talk) 00:42, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Glad to be of help. There are also bots (as described in links in the original message) that can archive this page for you when it sections reach a certain age or if the main talk page reaches a certain size. The templates provided there work pretty well. That should be it, Upsidedown Keyboard (talk) 00:48, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject notifications / biases, bludgeon essay

In general, just be aware that notifying a single WikiProject is perfectly normal here and is not a sign of bad faith. After all, WikiProjects are not inherently biased communities, so WikiProject China is not a community of editors who support the governmental position of (the People’s Republic of / Republic of) China for instance. I recognize that of course, biases may exist within a given community, but an open neutral notification of a WikiProject should not be taken as canvassing editors of a given bias.

Also, don’t expect editors to have to respond to every rebuttal you offer. The first half of the essay at WP:SATISFY covers it pretty well (and the bludgeoning section above it). Editors get tired of re-explaining their stance when they feel it is still valid in spite of repeated challenges to the contrary (which they may feel are not valid). I offer this (unprompted) advice because I am guilty of this at times, and it is something good to be aware of.

I hope that our disagreements on this fairly minor content point does not leave an overwhelmingly negative feeling. I also hope that this unprompted advice (maybe unwanted advice) does not come off as aggressive or accusational - I’m just giving an honest two cents here! I appreciate your edits here since joining and I hope we can constructively collaborate in the future. — MarkH21 (talk) 08:45, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Flaughtin. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the page Bitter Winter ‎, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#How to disclose a COI);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:Spam);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Grayfell (talk) 03:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Grayfell: This wouldn't apply as I have no external relationship with the magazine. Flaughtin (talk) 03:39, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. Please be aware that regardless, Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy. Grayfell (talk) 03:48, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Grayfell: Yes I am well aware of that (my other edits make that clear). It'd also help if you refrained from making those kind of borderline personal attacks again; just because we have contrastive views on doesn't mean that what I (or you for that matter) am doing is advocacy. Flaughtin (talk) 03:55, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

CESNUR deals with Falun Gong, Scientology, Chinese politics, public relations, and several WP:FRINGE topics. There are lengthy histories of disruptive editing for these topics, and CESNUR is right at the center of them. Several of these topics are under discretionary sanctions, which is a special system used to prevent disruption for specifically "strife-torn" articles. (See Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions if you're interested in how that works).

With that in mind, you'll have to deal with the occasional template message, and calling a routine notification a personal attack is not persuasive. I don't know who you are, and it's not my intention to badger you, but your recent behavior seems to me to be adding details to an article on an organization with a lot of difficult COI issues surrounding it. From past experience, I know that COI behavior is very disruptive, and that's why it needs to be addressed head-on. Hopefully that explains why this was worth discussing. Grayfell (talk) 04:12, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Grayfell: WEll no no it absolutely was not a routine notification that absolutely did come off as a personal attack. I don't know who you are either so why did you have to lead off with a template/warning when a simple, one-liner could have done the same thing? Or continue with this accusation of advocacy? You seem knowledable about wikipedia enough to know that you can't just assume that people who you disagree with just automatically have some kind of point to prove. For example I had never even heard of CESNUR before I started this debate with you - and if i am going to be honest, I have really have no interest in learning anything about them either.

Since you also mentioned my "past behaviour" then you should also be aware that I have the ability to resolve these things successfully. It would be good if this issue can be resolved in the same manner but of course that depends on whether you want the same thing as well. Your call. Flaughtin (talk) 04:34, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

CESNUR is repeatedly mentioned in the Bitter Winter article that both of us have been editing, so I'm sincerely confused by what you are saying. The reason I mention CESNUR is because articles related to CESNUR are likely to be contentious, and there is a high risk of COI editing, which has also been brought up on the article's talk page. I know template messages aren't the greatest, but that template explains this issue more clearly and more comprehensively than I could.

I mentioned your recent behavior, meaning at that article, because that's all I am familiar with. I specifically said that because I don't know what your abilities, nor is it any of my business. I don't doubt you are competent, or I wouldn't bother posting here. If you think any of this is worth bringing up at a noticeboard, go right ahead. Grayfell (talk) 05:00, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Grayfell: I don't know why you are confused because what I wrote was is clear as day. You are going on about CESNUR, how articles related to it (and presumably it too) has a history of attracting contentious edits and COI editing and what i am saying is i am ignorant of all that because...I had never even heard of CESNUR before I started this debate with you - and if i am going to be honest, I have really have no interest in learning anything about them either. Just because you add something positive or negative about something that CESNUR publishes doesnt mean that the edit/editor has something automatically to do with CESNUR - or that it's advocacy. It's obvious that you have an intense interest in what CESNUR does and I am telling you that whatever CESNUR is/does is something i really could care less about.

If you think any of this is worth bringing up at a noticeboard, go right ahead. Won't come from me if that's where this debate ends up. Like i said, it's your call. Flaughtin (talk) 05:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

New message from Bagumba

Hello, Flaughtin. You have new messages at Bagumba's talk page.
Message added 23:44, 26 October 2019 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

—Bagumba (talk) 23:44, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

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Partial undo

I have undone part of your edit [2] in my new edit here [3]. Let me know what you think of my edit. Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:24, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: It would be better if you could give further explanation for why his views should be included - the criticism looks arbitrary because there are (i would imagine) other officials that you can cite. My issue isn't with the content per se, it is who is saying it. Also keep in mind that this is English Wikipedia so sources would be best if they were in English. Flaughtin (talk) 22:57, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your time. As a local government leader from one of the counties of one of the four prefectures of southern Xinjiang which are particularly focused on by the central gov for the Xinjiang re-education camps, ([4]), I think he is relevant to the discussion by default. Here's his Baidu Baike biography: [5]. When I find other officials that have written similar editorials, I may add more material. To me, it doesn't seem to matter whether or not his editorial is written in English- all that matters is that we write the English Wikipedia page in English to describe what was said. Let me know what you think about this. Thanks. Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:19, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: "As a local government leader from one of the counties" Yes bu that could mean anything. Is this person the highest ranking official for the county? If he is then make that clear because like i said the criticism looks arbitrary because there are (i would imagine) other officials that you can cite. Flaughtin (talk) 08:33, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

In the spirit of good will, I say: do whatever you want with this. I just want to say to you that foreign language material is not "out" on English Wikipedia. By no means. Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:33, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Whoa!

I saw this edit summary go past: [6].

You seem to be getting pretty frustrated! If you'll take advice from a stranger; maybe take a break for a bit. :-/ The article might be a bit wrong today, but can still be fixed tomorrow, after all.

It's good to see people using BRD. Do note though that one can't force people to follow one's particular interpretation of WP:BRD (or even mine)! All you can do is apply it as a method to get people to cooperate.

All I can say is take care, stay frosty, and hopefully things will be better tomorrow? This is becoming a rather busy article, folks are going to need all their diplomatic wiles!

--Kim Bruning (talk) 05:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kim Bruning: It would be good if you can help with this then (relevant discucssion is here). Even better that you intervene if you are admin. It will be pretty obvious when you read through the whole thing why i reacted the way i did. Maybe i should have watched my language more carefully but it really is irritating when people who could care less about the rules start acting like they can teach others how they should be editing on Wikipedia. Flaughtin (talk) 11:27, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I think Kim's advice would be for you to worry less about "the rules" and more about what it takes to improve Wikipedia. "Diplomatic wiles" is often more effective in the long run than expecting people to follow rules. Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is our policy about how important "the rules" are. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Reverting sockmaster edits

You're not reverting sockpuppet edits but edits by the sockmaster made before they were blocked, thus that is not a sufficient reason to revert them. If the sockmaster is blocked, edits by the sock can be reverted, see WP:EVASION. Doug Weller talk 17:11, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Doug Weller I don't understand this. The sockmaster was blocked so that is why I reverted the things that that user wrote. When you say "edits by the sock can be reverted" I am taking sock to mean both the sockmaster and sockpuppet and afaic that is how WP:EVASION understands the term as well. Can you clarify? Flaughtin (talk) 00:03, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Edits made before a block cannot be evading a block that had not yet happened. For this reason, edits by a sockmaster from before the block are not reverted on the basis of WP:EVASION. Nothing in that policy mentions nor justifies retroactively going after a sockmaster's edits made before their block. It would follow from WP:NOPUNISH that we're not seeking Damnatio memoriae for sockmasters, merely enforcing their block by undoing attempts to circumvent it. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:53, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Ian.thomson I want to be clear about this. What exactly are the grounds for reverting edits by the sockmaster? Is it just the normal editing policies and guidelines (npov, v, mos, etc)? Or is there some other policy that I could refer to? Flaughtin (talk) 04:53, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the normal editing policies. If an edit by a sockmaster is bad for whatever reason, give that reason. Similarly, if an edit by a sockpuppet was legitimately helpful, it's fine to leave it alone (or, if one must make a show of going "no, this editor isn't allowed here," revert and then manually restore a paraphrase). Ian.thomson (talk) 10:07, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Also I was taking a closer look at that ockmaster's edits and came across this. User:Ian.thomson and/or User:Doug Weller can you explain? Because I am reverting the sockmaster for the same reason that Weller/you reverted that edit, but the reaction to our edits is divergent. If there was anything unique about that particular edit that warranted that/your revert to be unchallenged, then clarification would be helpful. Flaughtin (talk) 04:53, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not Doug and this is the first time I've opened the Robert Ovadia article. I don't know why Doug reverted there. Ian.thomson (talk) 10:07, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

It was a mistake and I've reverted myself, thanks for pointing this out. Doug Weller talk 10:20, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Notice that you are now subject to an arbitration enforcement sanction

The following sanction now applies to you:

Flaughtin is topic banned from pages and discussions related to the China-United States trade war, broadly construed, for a period of 6 months.

You have been sanctioned for the reasons provided in response to this ANI thread.

This sanction is imposed in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator under the authority of the Arbitration Committee's decision at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2#Final decision and, if applicable, the procedure described at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions. This sanction has been recorded in the log of sanctions. If the sanction includes a ban, please read the banning policy to ensure you understand what this means. If you do not comply with this sanction, you may be blocked for an extended period, by way of enforcement of this sanction—and you may also be made subject to further sanctions.

You may appeal this sanction using the process described here. I recommend that you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template if you wish to submit an appeal to the arbitration enforcement noticeboard. You may also appeal directly to me (on my talk page), before or instead of appealing to the noticeboard. Even if you appeal this sanction, you remain bound by it until you are notified by an uninvolved administrator that the appeal has been successful. You are also free to contact me on my talk page if anything of the above is unclear to you. — Wug·a·po·des​ 04:49, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

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Blocked as a sockpuppet

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for abusing multiple accounts as a sockpuppet of User:Waskerton per the evidence presented at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Waskerton. Note that multiple accounts are allowed, but not for illegitimate reasons, and any contributions made while evading blocks or bans may be reverted or deleted.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.  ST47 (talk) 00:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC)